We scrambled for the exit, but the shop had one last defense mechanism. As Maren reached for the door handle, the ‘Helpful Coat Rack’, a piece of enchanted furniture notoriously clingy with customers, animated. Its wooden arms snapped out, hooking onto Maren’s shawl.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Maren wrestled with the mahogany limb. “I am leaving! Let go!”
The rack held fast, trying to aggressively insist she take an umbrella, shoving a dusty parasol at her face.
“It thinks it’s raining!” I cried, trying to pry the wooden fingers loose.
“I don’t want the parasol, you possessed twig!” Maren managed to unzip herself from her shawl, leaving the garment in the rack’s embrace. The furniture seemed satisfied with the trade, petting the fabric contentedly.
We burst out into the street, the door clicking shut behind us. We didn’t stop running until we’d crossed the bridge, giggling like schoolgirls who’d stolen sweetmeats from the pantry.
“I liked that shawl,” Maren said, leaning against a lamppost. “But I suppose it was a fair price for a map of the magical apocalypse.”
We parted ways at the corner, and I hurried back to the infirmary, sneaking in through the back to avoid waking my father and sister.
Up in my narrow bedroom, the air was cold, but the safety of the locked door made my shoulders drop. I set the map case down on my desk and sat on the bed, near Kirion. He looked as exhausted as I felt. His scales were dull, and he shivered as I settled him onto the mound of pillows at the head of my bed. He curled into a tight spiral, tucking his nose under his tail.
I changed into my nightgown, shivering as the cool air hit my skin, and climbed in beside him. He was a strange bedfellow—radiating patches of fever-heat and unnatural cold—but he felt like an anchor.
“Hey,” I whispered, stroking the velvet-soft spot behind his ear. He let out a huff of smoke that smelled like burnt cinnamon. “We got it, Kirion. We have the map.”
He cracked one amber eye open, the pupil blown wide.
“We’re going to fix him,” I promised, pulling the quilt up over both of us. “We’re going to fix your Fenrik, and we’re going to fix you. No more bad dreams.”
I wasn’t sure if I was lying to him or to myself, but as he rested his head on my collarbone and fell asleep, I decided that for tonight, the lie was enough.
twenty-one
Lysa
Isat in the back corner of The Drifting Teapot, staring into the dark dregs of an infusion I hadn’t touched in twenty minutes. The porcelain was cold against my fingertips, a stark contrast to the heat I used to feel near Fenrik, whenever I reached for magic.
“You’re going to burn a hole in that cup, Lysa,” Maren said, sliding into the chair opposite me. She placed a fresh scone on the table, and the smell of butter and currants made my stomach roll. “Eat.”
“I can’t. It’s been three days, Maren. Three days since Kirion vanished from the infirmary.”
“He went back to his person,” Maren said, her voice gentle but firm. “It’s what familiars do.”
“He went back to die,” the conviction sat heavy in my lungs. I had convinced myself that leaving the manor was an act of mercy,that my presence was the catalyst for Fenrik’s destruction. But the silence from his and Kirion’s bond... it didn’t feel like healing. It felt like a grave.
Whatever Maren was going to say next was severed by a scream that tore through the cozy hum of the shop.
My chair scraped against the floorboards as I bolted upright. I was out the door before the bell above it could finish its chime, skidding onto the rain-slicked cobblestones.
A crowd had formed near the bridge, a wall of retreating backs and fearful murmurs.
“Keep back!” a man shouted, brandishing a shovel. “It’s maddened! Look at the rot on it!”
I shoved past Mrs. Gable and the baker, ignoring their protests. “Move,” I said. The circle parted, and the air left my chest in a rush.
Kirion.
Fenrik’s wyrmling was staggering across the stones, but he was a ruin of the creature I had come to love. His midnight-blue scales were dull and cracking, peeling away like dead bark to reveal grey flesh beneath. But it was the blood that made me gag, thick, silver fluid that usurped the natural red, dripping from his snout and his torn wing. Where the silver droplets hit the wet pavement, they hissed, burning small divots into the stone.
“Monster,” someone whispered behind me.
“Kirion,” I choked out.
